The tremendous growth of technology has positively affected the growth of financial markets. For example, technologies, such as, communication systems and networks have enabled investors to access a veritable plethora of information and carry out a variety of transactions involving financial markets. Such financial information can be gathered, distributed, and acted upon much faster and more efficiently than ever before. Prior to communication systems and networks, such as, the Internet, mechanisms for gathering and consolidating information from financial institutions were slow and inefficient.
Even today, financial institutions do not use a single standard interface, data format, or communication protocol to provide and exchange financial data on-line. Investors who want a single source of portfolio information have to move all of their assets to a single large investment industry vendor. However, such large vendors may not necessarily offer simple, easy access and a single source for financial information. Furthermore, despite the availability of “one-shop” institutions, many investors do not want to use a single institution because diversification across many institutions allows investors to get the “best” offerings from a variety of vendors.
Thus, as the marketplace shifts toward greater control by the self-directed investor, there is a need to provide financial vendors with tools and services that attract and retain investors. Further, there is a need for vendors to provide investors with the ability to automatically gather financial information from any number of financial institutions. Even further, there is a need for investor-oriented portfolio data consolidation.
Heretofore, conventional computer applications have been commercially available which provide what can be called either desktop financial packages or financial statement consolidators. For example, desktop financial packages, such as, QUICKEN sold by Intuit, Inc. of Mountain View, Calif., and MONEY or MSN INVESTOR, both sold by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash., allow users to perform calculations on financial information and present the financial information and any calculation results. However, conventional desktop financial packages are limited to only downloading information from direct data connections with individual remote locations, such as, an individual financial institution. Further, such desktop financial packages only handle specific data, formats and do little, if anything, to relate downloaded financial information.
As another example, financial statement consolidators, such as Yodlee, Inc. of Redwood City, Calif., and GreenTrack Investments of New Rochelle, N.Y., gather information about accounts and re-present that information as if the financial institutions had issued a common statement. However, such consolidators do not manipulate the information because it all has a common format before it is gathered. The financial information is only re-presented.
Thus, there is a need for a financial portfolio management system which provides access to financial information from a variety of unrelated financial sources. Further, there is a need to normalize and integrate financial information from various financial sources as to provide meaningful and accurate information. Even further, there is a need to aggregate financial information in a way that provides relationships among the financial information.